Addendum

The Democrats have (re)joined the college sports discussion on Capitol Hill.

Hey everyone, happy almost Friday. I recently took a week-long staycation to get more settled in St. Louis, which was really nice. I touched some grass, as they say, and have officially started birding. I had been talking about it for a while, then my wife spotted a barred owl in our backyard, just sitting on the fence, and it felt like a sign. So if any birders are reading, I would love to hear your wisdom/tips/war stories/etc.

And while I was away, there was another flurry of college sports-related activity on Capitol Hill. I’ve been meaning to say this for a bit, but I promise this won’t turn into a newsletter that only focuses on the college sports-politics crossover. That said, I saw a massive spike in subscriptions and overall views when I dug into the topic in June, so I’m trying to ride the wave while being mindful of a wide range of interests.

Today, though, we stay on the wave. Also, I wrote this entire newsletter before the president signed an executive order on college sports Thursday afternoon, so the spike in Democratic interest I outline below could soon include statements about said order and Trump’s involvement.

(Click for my Washington Post coverage of the executive order)

A photo of D.C., the loose subject of this post.

Addendum

Now that two House committees have voted to advance the SCORE Act — which I’ve written about here, here, here, here and here — the bill is expected to reach a full House vote in September, once Congress returns from its August recess. On a micro level, it will be the farthest a college bill has made it in either chamber in recent years, even as the NCAA and power conferences have spent millions on federal lobbyists. On a macro level, it illustrates an increased urgency from the NCAA and those conferences, and their many Republican friends in Congress, to land a federal bill before the midterms. (The bill also has two Democratic co-sponsors, Janelle Bynum (OR) and Shomari Figures (AL), both freshman reps. And thanks to Daniel Libit over at Sportico, we know more about what motivated each of them to cross what’s been a pretty strict partisan divide.).

Still, the same critical caveat applies: The bill, should it pass through the House with its widespread Republican support, would have a really hard time in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to break a filibuster. Its lead sponsors, Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), say they are open to revisions before the full House vote. But as written, the bill checks off every major ask from the NCAA and its members (and then some). That includes a sprawling antitrust exemption — a massive shield from lawsuits, in normal speak — and language that would keep college athletes from becoming employees.

(Also, after Trump signed the executive order Thursday, Guthrie, Jordan and Rep. Tim Walberg (D-MI), chair of the House’s education and workforce committee, linked arms and lauded it, writing in a joint statement: “We thank President Trump for his commitment to supporting student-athletes and strengthening college athletics in the NIL era. The SCORE Act, led by our three committees, will complement the President’s executive order, and we look forward to working with all of our colleagues in Congress to build a stronger and more durable college sports environment.”)

(Hours earlier, when NCAA president Charlie Baker was asked about a potential executive order, he said his and the NCAA’s focus would remain on affecting the legislative process in Congress.)

To no surprise, many Democrats object to most elements of the SCORE Act. A bit surprising, though, is that more of them are starting to take that stance publicly.

Or in a few cases, take that stance publicly again, pushing back against the Republicans’ well-coordinated push for such an NCAA-friendly bill.

Here’s a relevant quote from a newsletter I wrote in June, when the Republicans were first starting to mobilize on all this:

"There are so many House Republicans who are so, so motivated to get something across the finish line on college sports. And on the other side, there are so few House Democrats who spend any time before bed thinking about this. To be clear, I’m not saying they should. There’s a lot going on in the world. But the Republicans have a playbook on the issues and are pretty aligned across the board. Democrats? A lot of gray-area opinions and general indifference.”

And here is a passage, from the same newsletter, that broke that idea down more:

Guthrie, Bilirakis, McClain and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the Judiciary committee, are very into the idea of Congress delivering an NCAA-friendly bill. That’s just the start, too. But on the Democratic side, outside of Lori Trahan (D-Massachusetts), the number of invested reps is much, much lower. It’s also much harder to articulate or envision what a united front might be.

An addendum, then, of sorts: The Democrats are pushing back.

In the Senate on Wednesday, Chris Murphy (D-CT) teamed with Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to re-introduce the College Athlete Right to Organize Act, which would recognize athletes as employees under the National Labor Relations Act and pave the way for collective bargaining between athletes and their schools and/or conferences. In the House, Summer Lee (D-PA) introduced companion legislation. And then on Thursday, Murphy and Trahan re-introduced the College Athlete Economic Freedom Act, which would prohibit the NCAA and its members from limiting what athletes can earn through name, image and likeness (NIL) deals. Many of the policies in these two bills directly counter key elements of the SCORE Act.

Murphy and Sanders first introduced the College Athlete Right to Organize Act in 2021. Murphy and Trahan have been drilling down on these issues for a while now. But the burst of Democratic engagement doesn’t stop there. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate’s commerce committee, has taken multiple swings at the SCORE Act, saying it strips athletes of fundamental rights. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a lead Democrat in long-running negotiations for a Senate bill on college sports, did the same Wednesday night. And in the House, Lee has jumped into the conversation, as have Yvette Clarke (NY), Troy Carter (LA) and Kathy Castor (FL), who has repeatedly asked why the SCORE Act has no provisions for gender equity/Title IX.

What will this amount to, aside from a tangle of polarizing bills and press releases? That’s always a hard question to answer. But if it once seemed as if Republicans could ram a bill through a bright-red Washington, using Democratic indifference as a springboard, at least a handful of Democrats are set on making that more complicated. The Senate remains the ultimate battleground for any college sports legislation, seeing that the Republicans don’t have a filibuster-proof majority there. And through their actions and words this week, Murphy, Cantwell and Booker provided a preview of what the SCORE Act could face next.